Friday 30 November 2012

Shocking News. Hitachi the builder of Fukushima buys British Nuclear Venture

Japanese company Hitachi yesterday completed its acquisition of German energy companies E.ON and RWE’s UK joint nuclear venture Horizon Nuclear Power for £696 million.

How shocking, that the British government should stoop so low as to seek a bailout from the Japanese company responsible for the construction of the nuclear power plants responsible for the worst nuclear accident ever to occur in the world.

E.ON and RWE set up the 50:50 joint venture in 2009 to develop new nuclear generating capacity at Wylfa on Anglesey in Wales and at Oldbury in Gloucestershire. Earlier this year, they saw the error of their ways and decided to pull out of the nuclear business altogether. They started looking for a buyer for the venture.

Hitachi could no longer build nuclear power plants in Japan, due to the Fukushima crisis. So who offers to set themselves up like lambs to the slaughter? Britain. Hitachi now says it plans to develop two to three 1300 MW nuclear power plants at each of the sites and will be seeking regulatory approval to use Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) technology, plants that have been plagued by technical problems, argue critics.

“Hitachi is committed to helping the US achieve its vision of a secure, low-carbon and affordable energy supply,” vice president and executive officer Masaharu Hanyu commented in a statement. But we know that nuclear power is neither cheap, nor affordable. Expect to see electricity prices soar.